It is commonplace for individuals to carry cell phones with them. Most cell phones now include cameras and, in addition to capturing audio, can capture images corresponding to the audio being viewed.
While having a camera in a cell phone allows a cell phone user to capture images and send them at a later time to friends and/or family, in many cases it would be desirable if friends and/or family could view and listen to an ongoing event in real time.
For example, a parent at a sports game in which a child is playing might want to be able to send images, preferably with accompanying audio, to a device from which the other parent can watch the game in real time. Similarly it might be desirable to send images and/or audio from a party or graduation event in real time. The number of events which individuals, e.g., friends and/or family's might want to share are countless.
While cell phones have gathered wide spread adoption, many people have also adopted high speed Internet and/or other services which allow for video data to be delivered to one or more devices in their home. For example cable services may allow for video to be delivered via on-demand servers or via IP over coax. Fiber optic data delivery systems are also likely to grow as fiber to the home gains in acceptance and deployment increases.
While various data delivery services exist which could support the data rates required to support two way audio delivery and at least one way video delivery, there has yet to be convenient methods which are widely applicable for delivering video and/or audio to a party not using a computer and/or video conferencing system from a telephone.
In view of the above discussion, it should be appreciated if methods and/or apparatus could be developed which would allow video alone or in combination with audio to be delivered, e.g., in real time, to friends and family without requiring the use of computer and/or video conferencing systems at the friend of family members location. While not necessary, it would be desirable if at least some embodiments supported bidirectional audio and could be implemented using exiting set top boxes and cell phones.